garden visitors

Yesterday I was out in the garden planting peas and beans, when a couple of visitors arrived. Here they are: a pair of beautiful crimson rosellas. They had no fear and flew straight past my head, to land on the window sills. I thought they were lovely untill I realised what they were doing - eating the grouting from the window frames. I had heard that cockatoos do that, but had never heard that rosellas will.

Okay, the pictures aren't great, but they were the best I could do with my cheap digital camera. I was pleased I found the zoom button!

I have lots of beans up, and because of the rain in the last week, my zucchini are fruiting again. There is even a nice bok choy in the middle of the back yard. Better use that before hubby mows next.

The sunchokes and peanuts need to be pulled up this week. I wonder what the crop will be like. I will post pics when they are up.

Went to visit a friend at the weekend. She has recently moved from a house she has lived in forever, so her entire garden has been put in pots and taken with her. Her old landlord wanted the entire garden put back to lawn. What a silly man, but what an amazing sight. She would have needed a 2 tonne truck just for the plants!

Finished my course

Well, I finally finished my Permaculture design course, and even have the shiny piece of paper to prove it!

Of course, that just means there is still more to learn... I have also been doing Pat Collins Herbalism course and have been having a ball. Pat is a fantastic herbalist working out of the Total Health and Education centre in Musswellbrook. She has written some wonderful herb books which are available from Pat, or from my market stall. She also sells her own herbal preparations from her own centre or from Organic Feast in East Maitland. Her web page is http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~mbbplc/

I have also just taken over as the market co-ordinator of the the local Farmers and Artisans Market, and am enjoying that too. I have a stall at the market, mainly selling herbs (fresh, dried and potted) and useful permaculture plants, with some handcrafts and kids clothes on the side.

I have been adding to my garden, with galingal, lovage, a deep red frangipani (for hubby), pineapple sage and lemon myrtle being some of my new additions. I am now trying to decide whether to remove my quince (which has a very severe case of coddling moth and fruit fly) and my loquats, which I have recently been told attract the fruit fly to the garden.

Speaking of the loquats, they always fruit in November/December, which they did last year, yet the weather has them so confused, they are in full fruit again now!!! Of my two mandarin bushes, one has ripe fruit now, and as it fruited so early, it has been badly hit by fruit fly. The other mandarin tree (3 feet from the first) is running to it's usual schedule and should be fruiting late June, early July. My Feijoa is still not fruiting (damn), but I have grown peanuts for the first time this year. I will be lifting them this afternoon and we will see what sort of crop I achieved.

I pulled up one of my sweet potato patches last week and got a reasonable haul. My zucchini are still fruiting occasionally and my 7 year bean is a mass of flowers and beans. I was told last week that the plant is also known as "climbing spinach" so I need to do some research into that.

I have been juicing citrus all morning - mandarins and limes, and I have to say, it's no fun when you have a cut on your finger. Thank the gods for disposable gloves!!! Now to turn it all into cordial for the markets.

My cordial recipe is:

1 litre water
1 kg organic raw sugar (Our market is as organic as we can make it)

Put in a pot over heat to disolve the sugar. Once sugar is disolved, add 1 litre of juice. Shake and bottle. Keep in fridge till used.

When I make watermelon cordial (ambrosia in summer) I only use 500ml water and 1.5l of watermelon juice.

Enjoy!!!